Shadows Return

tonight.” Rhania raised her chin proudly, daring him to judge her as she held up a large key. “I took it while he slept and came here at once. We must leave before he knows it’s missing. He’s sure to know I took it.”
    “Bravely done.”
    “Come on, then. Kill Khenir with your knife and flee with me!”
    But Seregil wasn’t ready to let go of all caution just yet; somehow, it felt too easy. “It’s a good tale, my lady, and believe me, nothing would please me more. But why should I trust you any more than I do him? How do I know it’s not Khenir putting you up to all this, just to get me in trouble?” That would probably suit Ilar very well, watching him lose a foot on the block.
    She fell to her knees and clasped her hands. “I give you my pledge: ‘Though you thrust your dagger at my eyes, I will not flinch!’”
    “Are you sure?” asked Seregil, grasping the tip of the knife she was still holding and moving it away from his crotch. The oath was more than mere poetry among the ’faie. He drew the poniard and leveled it at her face. Even when he made a quick feint at her left eye, she remained absolutely steady, her gaze locked with his.
    “Please. Don’t doubt me now,” she whispered.
    He pulled her to her feet. “Will you show me to where my friend is being held?”
    “Yes, but it’s dangerous.”
    He grinned as he changed his slave robe for the clothing she’d brought him. “At this point, what isn’t? I’m not going without him.”
    “I know. But we must go quickly!” She pulled back her cloak to show him a satchel she had over one shoulder. “See? I have food, water, a flint, and the rest you asked for.”
    She took him by the hand and led him down a narrow stair and through several turns of a narrow passageway. He smelled dust and mice—a back passage, one that let servants move through the house without offending the eyes of the master and his household.
    They came out in a shadowy room full of bulky furnishings. At the far end a set of double doors stood open. Seregil stole up to the edge of the doorway. It was a crisp, overcast night, with no moonlight to betray them. Intentionally or not, the Khatme had chosen her moment well.
    Peering cautiously outside, he froze as he made out a line of figures outside. As his eyes adjusted to the light, however, he realized that they were only statues, lined up along the sides of a long fountain pool.
    I’ve been here!
He recognized the black-and-white mosaic paving. It was all he did remember, having been drugged to the gills the only other time he’d been here.
    Overhead, there was a second-floor gallery, with doorways and lots of darkened windows.
    “There, the watchman,” Rhania whispered, pointing out a dark figure slumped on a stool near an archway to their left. An overturned cup lay at his feet.
    “Drunk?” asked Seregil.
    “Dead, I hope. He helped himself to me once too often, so I gifted him with a bit of one of the master’s special elixirs in his wine tonight.”
    “You were planning this long before I ever showed up.”
    “Yes. Aura sent you, and I am ready.”
    “Take what the Lightbearer sends and be thankful, eh?” Seregil shook his head, wondering how a woman like her had ended up a slave in the first place.
    Rhania pointed to an arched gateway at the far end of the courtyard. “Through there. Your friend is in Ilban’s workshop.”
    “Good. Stay close to me.”
    Keeping to the shadows under the gallery, he started for the gate.
    Suddenly someone on the gallery overhead shouted, “There they are.”
    Rhania cowered back against the wall as the sound of running feet came from all directions. “That’s Ilban!”
    “There!” a woman screamed, and Seregil prayed it wasn’t Zoriel.
    “No!” Rhania gasped, looking around wildly. “No, I can’t…I won’t!”
    Before Seregil could stop her, she clasped the carving knife in both hands and drove it deep into her breast. She fell without a cry.
    “Shit, shit,
shit
!” Seregil bolted across the courtyard, dodged between two startled guards coming the other way, and dashed into the garden beyond. The workshop Rhania told him about was right there in front of him, but it might as well have been on the moon for all the good it did him right now.
    A pursuer caught him by the shoulder. Seregil paused just long enough to plunge his poniard through that man’s throat and into the chest of the one who’d come with him, then ran across to a large, ornate